Lights, camera, action!

For the past six months, I’ve been working with Mark Chupp at MSASS on a couple online course design projects. One is a refresh of the existing core community practice (CP) course. The other reflects an expanded focus on CP in the new curriculum. There will actually now be two courses, a generalist and an advance course—updated for 2020. The new courses will be created in a new learning management system (LMS) that provides more dynamic lecture formats, opportunities to bring in guest lecturers, even dramatic role plays with real actors. We’ll be skyping in some grassroots folks from St. Mary’s Center in Oakland to talk about civic engagement. In our six-part case study saga, actors will dramatize a series of situations in an apartment complex showing various social work roles, basic data gathering methods, cutting an issue for community organizing and showing assertiveness in leadership for social change. Pretty cool!

Now the hard part. Actual live filming in LA the first week of January! I’m not looking forward to recording nearly five hours of content in front of the camera and under the lights. To help prepare, I’m busily reviewing all the lecture slides, practicing and making notes. Send positive vibes starting January 6th!